Shooter left little for investigators

Date: December 20 2012

Dave Altimari, Edmund Mahony and Jon Lender

After a week of intensive investigation following the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six women at a primary school in Newtown, normally promising lines of inquiry have turned up little if anything to shed light on what motivated Adam Lanza, the reclusive, 20-year old gunman, to kill.

A preliminary examination of his mobile telephone showed that he had made or received few, if any calls, investigators and others familiar with the matter said.

No information has yet emerged from investigators on any possible text messages he may have sent or received.

Lanza appears to have spent much of his time during the weeks before the shooting in the basement of the home he shared with his mother Nancy, playing violent video games on his computer, investigators believe based on interviews.

His X-Box, an electronic game playing device that might have led investigators to Lanza's game playing partners across the internet, apparently was not used.

And the thin, withdrawn, young man - a computer tech club member while in high school - destroyed his home computer in a fashion that experts believe may have left it worthless to forensic examiners, as if he had set out to erase clues to his thinking, or who he may have communicated with, before he set out to commit mass homicide.

Before shooting his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, investigators and others familiar with the matter said Lanza also repeatedly shot his mother Nancy, killing the only person with whom he is believed to have been socially engaged.

"He killed the only person who really knew him well and knew what made him tick, so figuring out the why here is going to be difficult," a law enforcement official said.

State police detectives returned to the home on Yogananda Street home he shared with his mother on Wednesday night. They have been combing the 4,000 square-foot house since moments after the gunfire stopped inside the school.

Lanza had two bedrooms in the house, including one in the basement in which he kept his computer, his computer video games and other possessions. Lanza had thousands of dollars worth of video games as well as an X-Box, although it appears he rarely if ever used it, preferring to play violent video games on his computer with other anonymous gamers investigators were told.

The basement also is where Nancy Lanza, a gun enthusiast and target shooter, kept her collection of weapons in a locked box.

She had at least five weapons - two handguns a semi-automatic rifle, a .22 calibre rifle and a shotgun. Lanza had all the weapons except the .22 with him when he drove to the school.

By destroying his hard drive investigators will not be able to trace what games he was playing, who he was playing with and, more importantly, whether he gave anybody forewarning of the horrific violence he unleashed.

Anything he may have written on his computer that could have provided a glimpse into Lanza's thinking also would be irretrievable.

Two state police crime squads have been processing the evidence at the school, with the third one at the house.

Five days after the shootings investigators still are collecting bullets from inside and outside the school. Lanza fired so many rounds that many bullets pierced cars in the school parking lot.

Sources said that Nancy Lanza owned at least five guns and that all of them were purchased legally since her divorce in 2009.

Adam Lanza was carrying three weapons when he entered the school, two pistols and the Bushmaster rifle that he used to spray the hallway and two classrooms with bullets. A source said that he left a shotgun in the boot of his mother's car, which he drove to the scene.

Police also are still trying to determine how long Lanza had been planning Friday's massacre. There is no indication that he made any purchases in the days before.

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